You know what you're going to get from Ta-Nehisi--if you don't like video games, books, hip-hop, sports, the X-Men, black people and/or Worf, you're probably on the wrong blog. Those are my limits. That said, having come here in the wake of Matt's departure, I've been struggling with those limits. When something happens--like what's going on in Gaza--I think it's important to have some sort of discussion here from a progressive perspective, even if I'm not really qualified to lead it.
So I have an experiment I'm going to run. For a few posts a week, I'm going to turn over this blog to a good friend, Eyal Press--a fellow writer, a fellow progressive, a fellow beer lover, and a fellow football fan. I wanted him to blog some about Gaza, because, frankly, we've spent much of our friendship comparing notes about the perils and boon of nationalism and identity, and how they play out in our respective experience. What I've always liked about Eyal, is what I like about all writers I follow--nuance without lapsing into "on the other hand"-ism, and strength that doesn't harden into rigidity.
The fact and I'm black and Eyal is a Jew has been a sore point--but not as sore as the fact that I'm a Cowboys fan, and Eyal loves the Bills. He can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe he was in the stadium for the Bills comeback against the Oilers, and for their thrashing of the Raiders.
I guess, I should offer up some bonafides also. Eyal was born in Jerusalem, and moved to Buffalo, New York when he was a child. Eyal has written for The Nation, The American Prospect, The Raritan Review, The New York Times Magazine, and The Atlantic. His book Absolute Convictions chronicles the abortion wars in Buffalo, to which he had front row seat--his father, an obstetrician, was a constant target of pro-life protests. Dr. Bernard Slepian, who was murdered in 1998, was a family friend.
Here's Eyal in his own words:
Growing up, I visited Israel every summer, often traveling through the country with my cousin and his friends in Hashomer Hatzair, a progressive Zionist youth group. My attachment to the country runs deep. But I'm also among the many progressive Jews who went to the college when the first Palestinian Intifada erupted and who have come to view the occupation as a calamity. I'm not a pacifist but I've seen enough wars go awry (Lebanon in '82 and 2006, Iraq...) to be deeply skeptical.Israel is a highly contentious and emotional issue. As always, I don't ask that you guys agree with Eyal--I just ask that we all agree to respect each other. I hate to wave the hammer, but I'll be watching the comments, and coming down hard on ad-hominem. If you're looking to exchange ideas come on down. If you're angry and looking to vent, I'd ask that you step outside.
My grandfather was a socialist-Zionist who fled Bialystok for Palestine in the 1920s. Had he not done so, he almost certainly would have shared the fate of relatives who stayed behind and didn't survive World War II, which is one reason I don't run with the crowd on the left that views Zionism simply and solely as a colonialist movement, forgetting the part about Jews being murdered and persecuted relentlessly for centuries on end. (It had a colonial element, to be sure, but it was also a liberation struggle.)
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
and say, "ouch!"
sorry sorry i couldn't resist
Eyal = Bills Fan = He Must Be Correct
Looking forward to reading his thoughts.
This one's actually kind of appropriate for what I imagine as being in the middle of deep beef, especially the ending.
Hey, does this mean that Eyal Press is now the official spokesperson for the Jews?
I don't remember anyone nominating him!
I don't like anything in your list (except I would say I neither like nor dislike black people as a group; how do you give a thumbs-up or down to a group of millions of people?). But I really like this blog.
I barely made the cut, since I like the X-men. Oh, and also books. (I suspect my liking of Arrested Development and PM Dawn gets me zero hip-hop cred.) But I like this blog, too, Allan.
And so long as Eyal is a cut above Marty Peretz and Jamie Kirchick, I'm happy to hear what he has to say.
The voertrek into the inland of South Africa by the Afrikaaners was also a "liberation struggle" against a brutal enemy (the British). Is that supposed to exempt them from something?
I don't want to threadjack, but since you mentioned it more than once in the original post, I have to ask the first question that popped into my mind, self-centered, non-bombed, sheltered American that I am...
Can you give me the progressive perspective on the game of football? What thoughts bubble up when that question is posed?
Tangentially,
/joke-field-activated
I thought progressives only liked soccer.
/joke-field-deactivated
:)
One of the things I like best about your style TNC is your active reminders that you will not tolerate unruliness in the comments.
The NFL is borderline communist. Think about revenue sharing. Compare pro football to pro baseball. People call the Cowboys the Yankees of the NFL, but those people have no understanding of how money works in the league. Because of the salary cap, and because of so many moving parts, you simply can't go out and buy a championship in the NFL. Moreover, the sport is the most team oriented of all major sports--it's rare that one person wins a football game. And almost never does a football team ride one great player to a championship. Plus, all the worst aspects of humanity--prejudice, greed, envy, stupidity--are handicaps on the football field. They're handicaps in life, in general. But they will kill you in football game. Individual greed is never good on the grid-iron.
Dude...i like books, video games, sports, hiphop, X-men...and i think i like black people...am i up for a premier subscription or do i get an extra chicken-wing at the next convention-dinner?
@peep...no, since we haven't voted...i say the position is still vacant. Eyal should calmly wait recognition...
We're going to need another blog subject to "tackle" this one, TNC. Got lots of props for you, but can go point for point against you on that...as a fellow lover of the both the game and the league.
College...bah...not until they get their collective panties out of a knot and give me a real playoff schedule.
thats a really cool take on football, Coates.
i only recently started watching and paying attention to football games since i entered an office NFL pool this season. for me that culminated in a shit-ton of New Year's Day football in the snow when I went up to CT. I don't know much about the NFL but man I am in love with that game. I'm not a big dude but I enjoyed the hell out of it, offense and defense. Blocks, straight hits and tackles, carrying it, catching it, picking up plays... I dream of being a running back.
TNC...the NFL, the NBA, the NHL...are deeply regulated entities...compared to european soccer...it's frickin USSR...i mean, the big teams in Italy, Spain, England can change half a team, without even blinking. The only thing i would say is actually "capitalist" in the NFL, is that not much of the payment is guaranteed...that, is completely different from all other sports...people talk about "yeah, he signed a 50 million contract"...and then u find out about 90 % of that where incentives and bonuses that can be demanded back if shit goes wrong (vick??)...that doesn't happen in soccer...if a team wants a player...first they pay the club to basically rip the current contract...and then they have to sign a new one...
and btw..i refuse to think that this is thread-jacking...since u answered the question, and thereby made it ok!
Bruce,
You're right, I did. But let's table it for now guys. I promise a "football: liberal or conservative?" post tomorrow. There are obvious points for conservatives there, and most of this is interpretive anyway. But it will be fun, I think.
@peep...no, since we haven't voted...i say the position is still vacant. Eyal should calmly wait recognition...
I hope you are right, Bruce, but I fear you are being naive. TNC has a history of ignoring the will of the people and choosing on his own, invoking the principles of Black Power and executive privilege.
Yeah..well, if this goes by without voters consent i'll write him an e-mail he wouldn't forget! see...this is what y'all should've done to cheney andem' ! I haven't given up on Ari Gold for jewish rep yet!!
I LOVE Worf. And I wish Avery Brooks could land a role every now and then. Miss him.
Worf like Lieutenant Worf? Or is this like Volgon poetry?
Like Allan the only thing I'm unequivocally pro- on that list is books (I have yet to understand any football post more complicated than "game Sunday: discuss"), and yet I greatly enjoy this blog, perhaps because if I stuck in "search for blog based on known interests" I'd get the stuff I already read. You're an interesting person running an interesting dinner party, which is more appealing than a liberal science geek of whom I could find a fair facsimile in the mirror. Skol.
I welcome Evol, though, and any thoughts more illuminating than the perennial "Israelis, Palestinians pissed off" which could have appeared in any day's paper for decades now.
...comparing a progressive perspective on something to communism...tabled (lol)
if you don't like ... Worf, you're probably on the wrong blog.
Worf became a boring shell of a character the longer he stayed around Trek (I blame Michael Dorn) -- if you want a Klingon that didn't wear out his welcome, Martok has to be your d00d.
The NFL's Sovietness is also apparent in its style, i.e. its lack thereof. Blasts of creativity and individual expression are routinely squashed.
The NFL is borderline communist. Think about revenue sharing. Compare pro football to pro baseball. People call the Cowboys the Yankees of the NFL, but those people have no understanding of how money works in the league. Because of the salary cap, and because of so many moving parts, you simply can't go out and buy a championship in the NFL.
The NFL is not communist. Rather, the NFL is the apotheosis of crony capitalism - a cartel created by ultra-rich dudes to guarantee each of them massive profits through the exploitation of workers who are unable to effectively organize for their rights.
The salary cap exists entirely to guarantee profits and prevent the players from receiving a larger share of revenues. The NFL could remove the cap today and as long as they retained their massive revenue sharing, the only effect on competitive balance would be that teams that began to pay their players more fairly would realize a competitive advantage.
Even worse, NFL contracts are non-guaranteed. Players are practically at-will workers, they can be fired at a moment's notice and their contract no longer holds. The NFLPA has bargained away even much of their ability to review and challenge firings and suspensions imposed by the league.
As a progressive, I prefer the sport with one of the strongest unions in America, the MLBPA. It's true that what's best for the players isn't necessarily what's best for competitive balance, but as with most labor disputes, I weight the interests of workers over those of consumers.
(And again, if the owners wanted competitive balance, they could share a greater share of their revenues, and the players wouldn't object. The owners are out to break the union, just as the crony capitalists of the NFL broke theirs. Luckily, it is unlikely they'll succeed any time soon.)
Ok, since this is going pretty slow...i'll give it a shot...
i moved to the burbs' in my mid teens and got alot of friends from all around the world...because it was a poor neighborhood (projects to some), there were alot of minorities. and the views on israel (specially zionism) where pretty streamlined. People didn't like it. I didn't like it. When Sharon came to power, alot of us got alot to scream about. Alot of it was purely speculation, some of it was hate. Im not here to "vent", i've moved on it seems, because i grew up, and got intouch with the jewish community. And we worked shit out basically, some of it i still stand on my own, but i disagree without being disagreable. I'm definetly no scolar, but Eyal's take is correct i think...historically. But i think that the developement of israeli settlements on historical palestinian (which is what im guessing the author means by "colonialism") ground undermines the historical importance of the zionist movement for the israelis. Regardless of what people say and feel..they're there, they're not going away, the palestinians aren't going away. I guess im rambling, i don't seem to have a good point to make, but it seems to me that, for the last 8 years, this shit has been on the backburner and now people (MSM) are starting to realize how far it has come. Wake up fuckers, the house is on fiiiiiyyaaah.
One last time. It's tabled--though that is a great comment, Div.
Sorry - I await the relevant thread.
And getting back to Gaza....
Ta-Nehisi,
I was very close to sending you personal e-mail about this because it seemed out of character that you would avoid the Gaza story. I understand why someone as young as you are might not feel that you know the history of the 60 year Israeli/Palestinian conflict well enough to post, but you can certainly open it up for discussion.
You have obviously been thinking about this and decided how you're going to handle it. However, I think it is important that you share your own insights.
I have never been in Gaza nor am I black, but I can certainly draw parallels between what I observed in the Jim Crow south and what I have read about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the Palestinian experience in general.
I have had several decades to think about this, TNC. After all these years I still can't answer my own questions. Because at the most fundamental level, I still can't understand why we deny basic human rights to certain people and then try to justify it.
With what is happening right now, there will be enough blowback for several generations. As if 60 years isn't already enough.
Oh, this is terrific. I'm excited to read Eyal's perspective, and major props to his Buffalo Bills. They will always and forever have a special place in my heart.
Darn, it didn't embed. Oh well, the link was supposed to go to a recap of Buffalo beating Denver, keeping my Chargers' playoff hopes alive.
HTML Fail.
I liked Worf just fine, but I still have a soft spot in my heart for his late, lamented predecessor as Security Chief, the ass-kicking Tasha Yar.
TNC,
my favorite thing about your blog is that you create a serious, respectful place for reasoned debate on touchy topics. Among touchy topics, there isn't one more toxic (at least on the left) than Israel/Palestine.
I am convinced that the lack of dialogue and the social pressure to silence views in opposition to the hawkish (and ineffective) Israeli regime by characterizing them as anti-Israel or anti-semitic, that is partially responsible for the epic fail of the peace process there since the 1980s.
However, like you, I am neither Palestinian, nor Jewish, nor a Middle-eastern specialist and I tend to keep my opinions to myself on this topic as I may not be knowledgeable enough to say anything helpful.
Still, this mess in Gaza seems an incredible opportunity to break that silence and speak up for peace and progress. Not whose revenge is more just or who's wounds deeper, but peace. And I am heartened that progressive Jews like your friend Eyal and the folks at J Street speak up for these things making a space where allies who believe in the right of Israelis and Palestinians to co-exist in peace to join in their wake-up call to the region and the world.
I look forward to reading Eyal's perspective as this thing unfolds. Thanks for putting it out there.
Too many people are much more interested in advancing their own agendas instead of engaging in productive dialogue. Thanks for opening the lines of communication, and I'll definitely be reading.
All i want is to see one blog on a site like the atlantic's that articulates a position that is held by a great number of liberals in the west and probably huge majority of the arab world - that Israel is and has been commiting grave crimes against the human rights of a people to whom they deny a homeland. I don't want it to be made by a fanatical islamist or leftist who argues against anything that America does. We grant Israel a number of privileges - it can have nucleur weapons to defend itself, it can maintain laws that discriminate against its citizens on the basis of race, it can build settlements on foreign land. I would hope that at some point one clear sighted individual (of no party or clique) in the media could simply say that the killing of hundreds of civilians (whether in pursuit a few murderous terrorists or not) and the continued starvation of thousands more is unacceptable. And no matter how many rockets, how are there not more people who believe that civilised western nations should not have to resort to violence(the way britain dealt with the IRA was't perfect but it was certainly better)? I don't disrespect Eyal's views i just disagree with them and its not his voice I am looking to hear right now.
"You know what you're going to get from Ta-Nehisi ..."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illeism
A warm welcome to Eyal!
TNC, I'd love to see a censor's delete button on BOTH (1) ad hominem "you anti-semite/racist/imperialist/etc" and (2) complaints that the commenter is being "silenced" by scary censorous entities. Neither contribute anything to the discussion, both are inflated in the commenter's mind, and set up straw men that take us in circles.
ALSO can we stop analogies meant to inflame rather than edify? NO Hamas=Nazis, Israel=Apartheid, Israel=Jim Crow. All of these comparisons have enough caveats to render the analogy meaningless. They are straw men that end discussion. Nobody is going to defend Apartheid or Nazism, and its exhausting to deconstruct the analogy every time some ignoramus uses it without proper respect for history or sufficient knowledge to make their case without the comparison. If you need to yell "Apartheid!" to point out that Jewish-only settlements are discriminatory abominations, you really are hopeless at argument.
Liza, just a couple caveats to your comparison: (1) Palestinians are not excluded from citizenship or its attendant rights due to their ethnicity. One fifth of Israeli citizens are Palestinian Muslims who vote, have political parties, serve in the Knesset, often serve in the military (though its not compulsory), etc. They absolutely face some discrimination, but this is not Jim Crow. (2) The restrictions on mobility from the West Bank and Gaza to Israel are not to preserve racial division, but were established after and in direct response to the intifada.
Finally, the comparison is unhelpful because the endpoint of the conflict isn't unity and equality within one encompassing state (as it was in the US and in South Africa). The goal of basically everyone is two states, and the question is one of boundaries. The talk of binationality from some Palestinians lately has only emerged because they calculate that, with the recent relative birthrates, they could dominate such a state. It's not going to happen, nor should it - both Israelis and Palestinians are intensely nationalistic.
Great idea -- looking forward to it, and welcome to Eyal!
The world's Gordian Knot, exacerbated by the last eight years in which America vacated its role as a peace broker in the area. The crimes on both sides are really unimaginable and, the asymmetric nature of them impossible to deny. As a Jew who grew up with stories of the garden from the desert, who has friends with relatives who live there, I feel that Zionism may well succeed where millenia have failed to destroy Judiasm. The most famous legend of Judiasm is a story of how a boy took down a giant with a stone; the giant was Palestinian, and today Palestine has become a nation of Davids. Nonetheless, I find Americans pontificating about the crimes of Israel while we have yet to bring our troops back from Iraq (at least the Israelis have been actually attacked by the people they are fighting) a bit much. We have our own house to clean, but if I were to advise Barack Obama, I would argue that he had people working around the clock to promote a two state solution to the Palestinian/ Israeli problem. Modern war is promoted by thugs who benefit from enflaming hatreds and retributions, but a peaceful solution between the two would change the world.
@ Lauren
I understand the standard arguments against a "one state solution," but I only rarely hear the option of a binational federation raised. That is, there would be one state (probably "Israel and Palestine") which would have authority over foreign policy, monetary policy, and a few other things, but it would be made up of two subsidiary states that would each have authority over pretty much everything else. Each state would be able to elect 50% of the federal parliament (regardless of the actual populations) and you would have to have the support of both states to amend the constitution, etc. One benefit I see is that it solves the Jerusalem issue (as it could be the federal capital). Though there would definitely be issues with free movement - would you, for instance, need an internal visa to move from Palestine to Israel? (That said, I would say all the settlements would become part of Palestine, with settlers free to stay or to move back to Israel).
Obviously I don't think it's going to happen any time soon, as I doubt the Israelis would trust the Palestinians enough to bring them in to the power structure. And many Palestinians would probably feel like they weren't actually getting their own state. So maybe it's just pie in the sky. But on a theoretical level I find it very compelling.
haha, Citizen E, don't get me started on iraq although i would say that half of the world's 14 million Jews live in America so i wouldn't underplay its role in putting an end to the obscene history of anti-semitism. I agree with Lauren that analogies don't help - they only draw up hardened feelings which don't represent the reality of the situation. I wouldn't dismiss the discrimination against arabs in Israel as quickly though.
I know comparing cultures and making up hypotheticals is a dicy thing to do, but when I look at the two sides and wonder what would the Palestinians do if the roles were reversed. I imagine they would be far more brutal. The way women in their culture are treated when they are raped(with honor killings) and how they deal with homosexuality would lead me to believe that if in power, they would have a high propensity to terrorize a minority population.
Maybe my thoughts aren't fair and maybe they aren't relevent, but it does affect my thinking on the issue
Worf is silly, but Sisko (and Brooks) is awesome. Definitely the most relatable captain and an excellent pick for a place as contentious as DS9--can do the social stuff but can also play hardball. That said, you hardly ever talk about baseball which is probably a crime but at least US Football is not as bad as basketball.
Anyhow, here's my political question: Why do we have an alliance with Israel?
Looking at it from the perspective of American interests, alliance with Israel earns us the enmity of the populations of all other states in the region to some degree without anything else required. Whenever Israel does something the rest of the region doesn't like and we don't stop them, we suffer in our relations with them. If we support it, we suffer more. In terms of resources, there is nothing in the land of Israel we want to exploit (i.e. not a lot of oil) and in addition to enmity it also makes us more likely to support repression in the countries around Israel and make our support radioactive for moderate parties in the region.
Separately, Israel has spied on us rather blatantly and of course, there is the Liberty incident that was so suspiciously handled. What would be our response to any other ally that was caught doing the same thing? As far as I can tell Israel has not suffered a reduction in our support for their conduct on those issues that directly put the United States at a disadvantage.
Israel may be a "democracy" but in terms of American interests politicians of all parties and persuasions have long made deals with less desirable regimes. Besides, Gaza is also a Democracy and right now we are allowing Israel to attack them (with no objections) on some level because they made the "wrong" choice.
So basically, in my view our alliance with Israel is highly counter-productive to American interests. Combined with Israel's own actions against us, I think we need to end our alliance with them to improve the American position.
I await your and Eyal's response, thanks.
Hey again. No, I definitely do not underestimate the discrimination against Arab-Israelis. Israelis are surprisingly forthright about their prejudices - they have virtually no culture of political correctness. Israelis have hastily assured me that it was an Arab who robbed my friend, and warned not to go out with a particular guy explicitly because he was Arab. The prejudice is definitely there.
But it's not Jim Crow. Nor is Arab prejudice against Jews (Arab states evicted most of their Jews in 48) really analogous to Jim Crow, which is specific to American history. Not in substance and certainly not in context. Whatever their entrenched ethnic prejudices, these populations have actually been physically fighting each other for 100 years. Huge proportions of the populations have personally seen combat. If you've ever heard Hungarians and Romanians talk about each other, you're getting close to the warm-and-fuzzy of Israeli-Palestinian feelings.
I don't understand, honestly. You ARE more qualified to lead a discussion about the Gaza conflict, mainly because you have no stake in it. Eyal is Jewish. Matthew Yglesias is Jewish. Do you really expect to get an even-handed discussion from either of them?
You've just picked a side, Ta-Nehisi.
Lauren,
Allow me to quote myself:
"I can certainly draw parallels between what I observed in the Jim Crow south and what I have read about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the Palestinian experience in general."
I never stated what those parallels are. For your information, I was not referring to water fountains, public restrooms, buses, etc...
Even if I were, does the specific manifestation of discrimination matter as much as discrimination itself? Or, does it even matter if discrimination is legislated? Think long and hard about that one because we still live with a massive amount of discrimination right here in the USA.
If I were to be slightly more specific, the parallels that I am referring to are the consequences of segregation or any other social/political/economic structure that denies basic human rights, for that matter. I happen to be familiar with Jim Crow, because I grew up with segregation. You might actually find more specific, historical similarities between the Palestinians and Native Americans, except that the Palestinians have not yet decided to give up their resistance.
What I would like to see excluded from discussions about Gaza right now are academic dissections that are either accusatory, condescending, or masquerade as a superior knowledge of history as in, "Don't f@ck with me because I know my stuff."
Make no mistake that a lot of us understand the historical context and the importance of it. I have been around for a good portion of it.
The academic dissections might be more interesting if people were not being massacred as we write these comments.
Doug EMI - I think you are thinking of Iran or Saudi Arabia, Palestinians have other things on their minds.
Lauren - the difference is that it is official institutionalized discrimination not just a general prejudice. I don't believe there is a single other country in the world in which we would tolerate the laws that and hurdles that are set up to undermine an ethnic group.
MN Pundit, I know I'm only addressing one bit of your post, but I think the assertion that we're allowing Israel to punish the Gazan democracy for making the "wrong" choice is a bad misreading of the situation.
Let's go on the presumption that Gaza's a democracy (see below for more on this). The democratic government's official policy is the physical destruction of Israel. Not a "regime change" but obliteration. Not a theoretical goal, but one they actively pursue. That's very different from, say, if the US punished Venezuelans for electing Chavez because we think he's a POS out to undermine US interests.
Additionally, Gaza's no more a democracy than Pakistan. They had an election, which is good. Promptly thereafter, Hamas and Fatah and various assorted clans proceeded to slaughter each other, kidnap each other, and throw each other off of high rise buildings. There is no apolitical civil service or police. There is legal system for recourse if Hamas decapitates your brother. They have replaced the Palestinian flag with the Hamas flag. A democracy requires more than just elections.
Whatever else it may be, and its actions often don't endear me, Israel remains the only actual democracy in the region. Lebanon places second (yikes).
I though I might be confusing the situation so I double checked before I posted
http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=palestinian+honor+killings&fr=yfp-t-501&toggle=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF-8
http://search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=A0geu9Miu2JJkiEA0IhXNyoA?p=gay+palestinians&fr=yfp-t-501&ei=UTF-8
Wait, there are people who pontificate on "the black condition" after having read Colored People? Damn. Is Invisible Man too long for them?
Lauren,
Your oversimplification of the Hamas/Fatah fight for Gaza is interesting. There was no foreign interference after Hamas was democratically elected, right? None whatsoever. Just a lot of infighting.
And, of course, the only logical thing for Israel to do would be to turn Gaza into an open air prison and deny food, medicine, water, electricity, etc...to the entire population, half of which is under the age of 18.
Ta-Nehisi, I think you can post on the Israel-Palestinian thing.
All I want to write here is the perspective of an American who got a lot more interested in the Middle East after we invaded it, and this is: there are editorials from Billy Kristol, John Bolton, and John Yoo supporting Israel.
Well, that's enough to decide me, right there. We have lived through the last eight years of the Bush administration. We have seen those who supported this insane Iraq adventure shred our Constitution, our international reputation, our government, and now our economy. We know they are EVIL and I do not use the word lightly.
And now they support invading what sounds like a cross between a slum and a prison so they can kill more people.
Lauren says Israel is the only actual democracy in the region. Well, we are a democracy too, and we have committed EVIL in the past eight years and I see no reason why the people who wanted what has been done by our government over the past eight years (Abu Graib, Gitmo, rendition, war, etc.) would not be doing the same thing over there.
And I'll bet it's no accident that they are trying to get all these people killed before Obama can take up the reins of power.
@ Charles - I haven't heard this discussed either. You raise good points - especially looking at how mixed up the maps are now. I mean, can Hebron even practically be evacuated at this point? Don't a few hundred thousand people live there? So do you think it would be based on the 67 lines, or current population distribution (say, would Arab-Israeli towns be part of the Palestinian or Israeli area?).
Jo, I agree. (Speculation, but I bet if you check out the Jew/Arab disparities in land permits and home demolitions around Jerusalem, it'd tell an ugly story.)
Liza, jeez. I wasn't attacking you, just making the point that analogies meant to inflame rather than edify aren't helpful or accurate. I was using the analogy to Jim Crow, which you happened to have already mentioned in the thread, as an example. If you have a point about the effects of segregation, you should have just made it. Sorry for misunderstanding your comment.
That comment wasn't meant to be any kind of "academic dissection" (though I don't think the distinctions are academic at all). I also wasn't trying to demonstrate any kind of "superior knowledge" - I suggested that we refrain from inflammatory analogies and I gave an example. I expect a lot of commenters to have a lot more knowledge than me and good for them - hope they share it.
MN Pundit, I know I'm only addressing one bit of your post, but I think the assertion that we're allowing Israel to punish the Gazan democracy for making the "wrong" choice is a bad misreading of the situation.
Actually, Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY9) was on MSN today around 430pm eastern, saying that by electing Hamas, the Palestinians in Gaza at least in part "brought this on themselves." So while the situation might not actually be the case for Livni/Barak and Hamas, I think it strengthens my argument that elements of US political culture see it that way, which is why they are letting it happen without protest or with support.
Imma repost this here after I posted it on the other thread too. NOBODY has clean hands in the I/P conflict but all too often we only focus on one particular side and what they supposedly do or have done. This is a report from the U.S. Army War College on the I/P conflict that was published just before Christmas. I also urge people to google "Dignity Denied" for a report from the International Red Cross on the conditions in Gaza that was published last December and keep in mind that things have gotten worse not better since then.
http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/summary.cfm?q=894
Keep in mind now, this isn't from some lefty librul peace activist milquetoast blog. This is from the Army War College.
At the point we stop subsidizing the Israeli military and the Israeli economy, I'm willing to accept that Israel's relations with Palestine are not our business.
NOBODY has clean hands in the I/P conflict but all too often we only focus on one particular side and what they supposedly do or have done.
People are mad about things that happened 5 months, 5 years, 50 years, and 500 years ago. For the first two, everyone has a point. For the last two, those outside of the middle east tend to throw their hands up and say "Can't you people just move on?"
I have heard some good proposals (e.g. right of restitution but no right of return) but it seems only rarely that a critical mass moves from "I'm pissed about what's happened to people I know, on whatever time scale" to "Moving onward ever forward..." and the momentum doesn't get sustained; I have no idea how one would go about sustaining it with so much ill will all around.
(Okay, I will admit that in a science fiction story by Tepper she believably solved it by having aliens steal the Old City of Jerusalem and refuse to give it back until a workable peace plan was in place. But I hope someone can suggest something that does not require aliens.)
@ MNPundit
Yeah, to the extent that the attitude is: "civilians elected Hamas, so our consciences are clear of civilian casualties" that's deeply messed up. By that logic all Israelis are legitimate targets b/c they elected Olmert. But Wiener, etc. were letting this happen w/o protest even before the elections. Just a sickening excuse for them to sleep better at night.
Enablers don't do Israel any favors. The last US Prez who wasn't a total enabler was...Bush the elder? Did Clinton ever get tough on the settlement building? I don't remember it if he did.
Wait a second, there are people who believe that there is a valid analogy to make between Israel and South Africa. This group includes many people in the Arab world and many Black South Africans, famously Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu.
How dare you presume that the intention of presenters of the analogy is to inflame? How did you get into the minds of people you're arguing with? You're being absurd right now. Maybe they are saying what they believe, and maybe they're right.
I guess this is related to your other proposal, to ban claims of censorship. You take entire swaths of the discussion off of the table by fiat, but your lack of prerogative to do that cannot even be discussed. Silly, dishonest - this is the discussion style of a the side that at least on some level knows it has the weaker argument.
Now Apartheid and Zionism are not identical phenomena. But what if it was? What if instead of Apartheid, the Afrikaaners fought a "defensive" war against the Blacks and drove enough off of the territory they wanted that they could let the remainders vote without jeopardizing the White nature of the state? While the expelled Blacks live in Bantustans that are militarily and economically dominated by the Afrikaaner homeland?
I would not tolerate that. The other African nations would not tolerate that. Mandela would have opposed that exactly as strenuously as he opposed the Apartheid in our timeline.
Arabs were the majority in Palestine when the Europeans decided to take this inhabited land and give it, by force and against the expressed will of the Arabs, to another group to settle. They have every right to advocate a one state solution where they'll be the majority. As much right as Mandela has to a one state solution with a Black majority.
Mandela was offered a bantustan solution, multiple unequal states, one of which (the White one) was to be allowed to have military dominance over the others. Mandela turned it down more vehemently than Hamas turns down a similar two state solution. And rightly so. Mandela never offered a Hudna, to recognize a White state for the time being while still maintaining that it is an injustice that should be corrected in the future.
Jews want a state. I get that. The cost of a Jewish state is very expensive. If Israel accepted Hamas' refusal to recognize a permanent Jewish state, they could have eased the blockade and ended the Hamas rocket fire without bombing and starving Gaza as they are doing now.
Ensuring that Jews have a majority in Israel permanently is not worth one Arab life. Not one family whose home was bombed, killing all the daughters is of less value than this ideal that Jews should never have to worry about an Arab prime minister or Parliamentary majority.
I wish the Holocaust hadn't happened, but the solution cannot to take land against the will of the Arabs/Palestinians to make a Jewish homeland.
Ta-Nehisi, I have to agree that bringing a blogger to represent the Israeli side without one to represent the Arab side is taking the Israeli side yourself.
"Hence the silence around Israel in general, and Gaza in particular. I have my thoughts, and I've read my Tom Segev, my Benny Morris, my Walter Lacquer. But I try to give folks the respect I'd want for me and mine. I don't take kindly to fools who think that a couple readings of Native Son and Colored People makes them an expert on the black condition. I'd never want to make the same mistake."
I mean, you don't need to be Jewish (or Palestinian) to comment. Just like you didn't need to be Georgian or Russian to comment on the Georgia situation.
The scariest thing for me is listening to the willfully ignorent rants of family that choose not to see all participants as humans.
It was never OK 60 some years ago for Western governments to divide Palestine and 'assign' Israel a home on Palestinian land, but they did and this is not going to change and the consequences are something we will all have to deal with. Much like the arbitrary division of
India and Pakistan (East and West) around the same time- the results of these two monumental decisions to split peoples based on religion has contributed to most of the modern turmoil/war we are dealing with now.
From Andrew Sullivan's blog-
"Aliens
I think Glenn Greenwald - who has less fear than any journalist I know in Washington - is onto something important here:
'Those who giddily support not just civilian deaths in Gaza but every actual and proposed attack on Arab/Muslim countries -- from the war in Iraq to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon to the proposed attacks on Iran and Syria and even continued escalation in Afghanistan -- are able to do so because they don't really see the Muslims they want to kill as being fully human.'
The inability on both sides to see Jews and Arabs as equally and indistinguishably human before they are Jews and Arabs is at the heart of the problem. In a contest between Israel's flawed democracy and Hamas's theological murderousness, I see no moral equivalence. But Israelis and Arabs demand exactly the same respect as human beings, every single one, including the "worst of the worst". A refusal to grapple with the moral costs of this conflict, and a glib dismissal of the terrible human carnage now being inflicted by Israel (and paid for in part by Americans) is a sign of moral unseriousness. But it is the same mindset that can authorize the torture of human beings and see it as "coercive interrogation" only when Americans do it to Muslims.
And when I read Michael Goldfarb, I become more and more aware of just how disgusting the McCain campaign was; and how lucky we are to have removed these thugs from office."
http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/2224950/37869096
Juan Cole has this posted over at his blog. Warning its not easy to watch but it was on CBS earlier.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev6ojm62qwA&eurl=http://www.juancole.com/&feature=player_embedded
NLH,
That is it, without question.
To try and justify the slaughter or even the mistreatment of human beings, you HAVE to dehumanize them. The very basis of your argument HAS to be that they are less than human, that it is alright to deny them the most basic of human rights. In fact, if they are not human, it is alright to deny them their own lives. It is okay to kill them.
Jack,
I'd appreciate if you didn't comment here anymore. If you want to discuss further, send an e-mail.
T.
I just watched that video, Sgwhiteinfla.
This is a massacre, pure and simple.
It is what happens to the children that just tears my heart out.
Liza
I am usually a pretty strong dude but that final shot got me pretty good. I don't see how anybody can see something like that staring them in the face and still cheerlead whats going on right now no matter what the stated intention is.
No problem Ta-Nehisi
This is how you eat. I respect that. I don't see any point to sending you an email, but I have no problem with not commenting.
Best,
Jack Irons.
Ok, 2 things before I crash:
I didn't call for a ban on analogies - actually, your discussion of Mandela regarding the binational versus two-state solution IS edifying. In the sense that you actually state a point, as opposed to someone equating the two without any explanation and using this straw man to replace an argument. The suggestion was that we avoid unedifying, inflammatory analogies (as in someone writing "hamas=nazis. down with hamas" - which is exactly what happens to most of these types of threads) because they are unhelpful and unnecessary. So chill out.
"While the expelled Blacks live in Bantustans that are militarily and economically dominated by the Afrikaaner homeland?"
Except this isn't what Israel did. The Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza weren't economically or militarily dominated by Israel - they were part of Transjordan and Egypt. (I would add that Israelis lost land in 48 that had been Jewish for centuries) Israel acquired them only after TJ and E started and lost a war - and this was meant to end with final status settlements.
To Jo:
"Doug EMI - I think you are thinking of Iran or Saudi Arabia, Palestinians have other things on their minds."
I haven't read of any cases of Iranians (OR Saudi Arabians) committing honor killings, that's mostly in South Asia and Iraq/Jordan. Please don't slander a race of people.
Um, can we wait for Eyal Press to post before assuming he's a representative of "Israel's Side"? I've read him The Nation and if y'all are thinking that he's a mouthpiece for the Israeli military, well, you may be in for a surprise.
TNC-- have you ever read Bill Mantlo's "Hulk Goes to Israel" stories from the 80's, in which the characters Sabra and The Arabian Knight premiered? Jus' wonderin...
What happens to a society where people say "I am not qualified to talk about this and express an opinion"? Isn't that the first step to a society run by the experts or people who promise to keep you safe from fears that they create?
Persian:
http://www.stophonourkillings.com/?name=News&file=article&sid=2933
http://www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,,2-10-1462_1436398,00.html
Doug EMI sorry if there is evidence for this - hadn't read of it before.
I don't think it's right to say that Press will be representing "the Israeli side" - first because we haven't read his writing yet, and second because what of his I've read, I'm assuming he'll be a strong progressive and anti-war.
However, I think Irons raises a good point. There's just no balance in the demographics of commentary. How is it that there are basically no people of Palestinian descent, or even of Arab descent, who receive even a decent readership on the lefty blogs?
Except this isn't what Israel did. The Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza weren't economically or militarily dominated by Israel - they were part of Transjordan and Egypt.
Right, but the effect on everyday people living in the occupied territories is exactly the same. That's the empathetic move that Mandela and Tutu are demanding - see the situation from the eyes of a Palestinian, just as they called on the world see South Africa through the eyes of the oppressed.
@Jo...
Im sorry for saying this, but that's just tarded...it's a fricking village in the middle of nowhere. What do u expect? Some "cultural" (actually it's traditional) retardation in iran still lives on, it's sad but true. But there's a more modern iran that doesn't stand for those types of disgusting acts. Please don't villify a nation of over 50 different cultures and tribes. And yes i know, management sucks...but seriously...if u actually read the effing text, u would see...that it says:
"More than 2000 people in Mariwan came to the street and held a demonstration against "honour" killings; they went to hospital and collected for Fereshte's body, and buried her with respect."
And that's in the SAME village...
follow the link on the page for visual proof...if you're soft like me, and cant stand mutelated bodies, don't look at the last picture.
http://www.irantelegraf.com/2008/08/post_2724.html
@ Lauren
For the federal state idea, I would be inclined to keep it strictly geographical, with the Arab communities staying in "Israel" and the settlements staying in "Palestine". I think this would encourage both sides to come to terms with living with each other.
As for the specific borders, '67 is probably the easiest, but you might need to do some tweaking here and there. But you would probably want to make Jerusalem a federal capital and not part of either state. The alternatives of giving it to one side or the other or of splitting it down the middle just don't make much sense.
Again, I don't see this happening anytime soon. But it's odd that you never hear it even raised as an option when it is basically what we did with Bosnia.
One hard-earned lesson from the Northern Ireland conflict was that competitive screaming about who suffered more at the hands of the other side (it came to be called 'whataboutery') achieves nothing except a zero-sum game.
A second useful lesson is that the biggest historical injustices are the hardest ones to remedy. At some point, the victim simply has to accept amelioration of the symptoms, not a cure. God is on the side of the big battalions, unfair as it is. (What this says about God is a matter for a different discussion...) Time, however, has a way of changing the size of the battalions.
A third lesson is that subversives (or terrorists, or guerillas, call them what you want) win simply by not being defeated. The surprising corollary is that demilitarising a situation can take away their reason for being.
Let's not be naive: Hamas follows a loathsome doctrine of hatred, but they gained sway in Gaza by addressing crisis condition that Israel, as an occupying power, permitted to develop and even worsened. Israel will continue to be perceived - rightly or wrongly - as the wrongdoer unless and until the Palestinians have their own viable state and government to blame. And to get to that point, Israel will have to swallow hard and talk to the people who say they want to wipe it off the map.